The family we have grown up in is the primary and, except in rare instances, the most powerful system that will shape and influence who we are. In the Ten Commandments, God said, “For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Ex. 20:5-6). As stated above, curses can be passed down to the third and fourth generations. Sexual sins affect up to the tenth generation (Deuteronomy 23:2), but the blessing of obedience to God is passed down a thousand generations (Deuteronomy 7:9). We are not personally guilty of our ancestors’ sins (Jeremiah 31:29-30; Ezekiel 18:2-32), but we do live with the consequences of their sin—and will continue to live in the way we were taught unless we repent. When people repented in the Old Testament, they confessed their sins and the sins of their ancestors (Nehemiah 1:6-7; 9:2; Jeremiah 14:20; Daniel 9:10-11). We have the same responsibility to recognize our own sins and the sins of our ancestors, to confess them, and to refuse to be held in bondage to living these sins out in our lives. Generational sin and its effects come to us in three ways:1 1. We inherit our propensities to sin through our genes (personality, behavioral tendencies) Heb 7:9,10 – And, so to speak, through Abraham even Levi, who received tithes, paid tithes, for he was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him. 2. By example 3. Through the law of sowing and reaping: the effects of sin multiply in the future --Seeds of sin ripen to produce thirty-, sixty- or a hundredfold, Mark 4:8,20 --When David sinned, his child died, 2 Sam. 12:1-24 --The law of sowing and reaping was designed to bring blessing, but through sin brings destruction, Gal. 6:8 The lives of David and Abraham show how generational patterns of sin were passed down (adultery/a heart not fully devoted to God, sexual sin, and family division and sibling rivalry for David and a pattern of lying, having a “favorite” child, and sibling rivalry for Abraham). Curses are stopped at the Cross of Christ according to Galatians 3:13.
